Fifty years ago, Lew Tabackin named a record Dual Nature and meant it literally: three tracks on tenor saxophone, three on flute, each instrument held to its own standard. The album gave the name to his working trio, which plays The Falcon in Marlboro on Sunday, October 25. The premise has not softened.
About the Show
Tabackin brings bassist Peter Washington and drummer Jason Tiemann for this Hudson Valley engagement. A Grammy-nominated saxophonist and flutist who majored in flute at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music before taking up the tenor saxophone — a trajectory that runs against the typical jazz player’s path — he built his career through a sequence of significant associations: early work with Cab Calloway, Maynard Ferguson, and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, later with Donald Byrd, Elvin Jones, and the Doc Severinsen Band. He went on to co-lead the award-winning Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra with pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi, and during the 1980s began winning DownBeat critic’s and reader’s polls specifically for his flute work — an unusual distinction for someone equally committed to the hard bop tenor side of his practice. Since relocating to New York in 1982, he has remained a major figure in contemporary jazz. Kuumbwa Jazz Center calls him “an artist of astonishing vision” who has “absorbed elements into his style, ultimately creating his own sound and aura.”
The hard bop tenor and the flute are not natural roommates — one is built for weight and grit, the other for air and lyricism — and most players who move between them concede the priority of one. Tabackin has declined that concession for decades. The Falcon’s listing describes the trio’s sound as “virtuosic, primordial, cross-cultural, and passionate,” with “wide intervals, abrupt changes of mood and tempo” — language that suits a musician whose range of reference runs from postwar American swing through cross-cultural abstraction, distilled into something that resists easy category.
Venue & Logistics
The Falcon, at 1348 Route 9W in Marlboro, is a 150-capacity jazz and blues club in the Hudson Valley. For music built on dynamic control and the meaning of space between phrases, that intimacy is not incidental — it is part of how this kind of performance lands. The club operates on a donation basis; 100 percent of proceeds go to the performers. Dining begins at 5:30 p.m.; showtime is 7:30 p.m. Table reservations are available for dining; bar seating is unreserved.
Tickets
The Falcon is donation-driven, with all proceeds benefiting the performers directly. No fixed ticket price applies. Buy tickets